A Mexican Hospital, an American Surgeon, and a $5k Check

This is the most absurd escalation I&#x27;ve read regarding the US healthcare system. What a laugh.<p>Since it&#x27;s this bad, it alludes to vast untapped potential for more cost saving measures that are both funny and embarrassing.<p>A quick google suggests prisoners have to pay 10-100$ copays in some states, but otherwise receive care. I wonder if there&#x27;s a topology of illnesses where a financially optimal course of action to acquire treatment is to commit some petty crime and receiving treatment in prison? After lost wages, and earnings potential from your now tainted record, and all else. There might be!<p>Here&#x27;s a business idea that might already exist, vocational-technical elementary &#x2F; pre-school for trying to lead your own children into and through medschool. Doctors are so expensive you might as well make your own!<p>That one baby saving medicine that just got approved costs like 2 million dollars, right? For anything ~ 200k+ that isn&#x27;t literally holding your baby hostage from imminent death, it&#x27;s probably cheaper to get a degree in chemistry and some lab equipment.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;43pngb&#x2F;how-to-make-your-own-medicine-four-thieves-vinegar-collective" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;43pngb&#x2F;how-to-make-your-o...</a><p>It&#x27;s crazy, but only in a crazy system can things like this approach rational.<p>Here&#x27;s another idea. What if patients could rent hospital administration as a service. Put payment for a procedure in escrow, sign all the malpractice waivers and try to attract a doctor like tinder. I&#x27;ll sign all malpractice waivers if you&#x27;ll just cut this cancer out of my gut. We can use my living room! It&#x27;s this or death anyways so fuck it! America WOO

Why are people so surprised? This is a great story and everyone should do it. The US system is gridlocked regulatory capture by scammers scamming scammers. Anything to route around it is a great idea.<p>In Japan I had no insurance, but my shoulder bothered me so I walked in to see my doctor the next morning (no appointment, $100), he scheduled an MRI for the next day ($300), and two days later I paid extra to talk to the radiologist($75) to see the damage up close. By the time I saw the surgeon the next week, I already knew I should do physical therapy instead of surgery. In the US this would have taken many weeks and thousands of dollars.<p>Meanwhile, back in Seattle, a doctor said &quot;take this paper to the emergency desk to get a scan&quot;. Bad idea, that cost me $5500 and 8 hours of imprisonment. I couldn&#x27;t leave after the scan, I waited hours longer for the doctor on duty to give a diagnosis (for a scan?), and of course she billed me separately for that.

This is a crazy story. All that’s missing is a connecting flight through Canada on the return to pickup some prescription drugs.

&gt; Mr. Stackpole said only a limited number of Americans were willing — even with a financial incentive — to travel abroad, because most perceive the care won’t be as good.<p>this meme that the US has the best and brightest in <i>everything</i> and nobody else holds a candle is both hilarious and depressing. it is now costing people their lives and creating financial ruin, but it seems that US health parasites are still pumping it.

It&#x27;s incredible that medical tourism can allow people to be treated by a Mayo &amp; Brigham and Women&#x27;s trained physician at a fraction of the cost, and that the physician actually makes more. I suppose much of the expense here is what American facilities normally charge, though I wonder if the stated prices in the article are before any negotiations between the providers and payors.

This is a misleading article.<p>If the patient truly qualified for outpatient total knee replacement (orthopedic surgeon was out of Cancun in less than 24hrs per the article), the cost of this procedure would have been around <i>$11,677</i> in the US at an ambulatory surgical center. Per the article, the cost of the procedure in Cancun was...&quot;but at Galenia, it is only <i>$12,000</i>&quot;. I will definitely give credit where it is due, as the inpatient cost in Mexico would be far cheaper than in the US.<p>Disclaimer: I am a medical student, so please keep my biases in mind. I have no skin in the game, and I totally get that prices in the US are abhorrently high. Please read the following articles to gain a better understanding:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthaffairs.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;full&#x2F;10.1377&#x2F;hlthaff.22.3.89" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthaffairs.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;full&#x2F;10.1377&#x2F;hlthaff.22.3....</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthaffairs.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1377&#x2F;hlthaff.2018.05144" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthaffairs.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1377&#x2F;hlthaff.2018.05144</a><p>Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eurekalert.org&#x2F;pub_releases&#x2F;2019-03&#x2F;hfss-nir031319.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eurekalert.org&#x2F;pub_releases&#x2F;2019-03&#x2F;hfss-nir0313...</a>

As this grows in awareness and popularity, I can see US healthcare providers lobbying to make it illegal. Which would be tough - what do you do, put heart surgeons on the no-fly list?

Seems like a win for the patient and the insurance company and clearly worth the surgeon&#x27;s while (or he wouldn&#x27;t have gone). Personally I&#x27;d have no problem signing up for a &quot;everything over $x and we send you to Mexico&quot; plan.

I live in Mexico with my Mexican wife.<p>Earlier this year she had a minimally invasive heart valve replacement (instead of opening all the chest they did via a smaller cut on the side). She was walking out of the hospital 4 days after the surgery.<p>We paid about $6500 USD which included everything. The mechanical valve, surgery, hospitalization, etc.<p>Some people pay a lot less than that since the price is according to a socio economic background check the hospital makes.

Having had a number of surgeries in my life, I do care that my surgeon is well-trained. But I care even more about the anesthesiologist.

How long until someone converts a cruise ship to a hospital ship and parks it off the coast.<p>The US healthcare system just gets weirder and weirder, almost everything has been tried except fixing it.

In 2004 I was in Cancun and met a few people doing this kind of thing. It was for plastic surgery type stuff that wasn’t covered by insurances. Not nose job stuff more disfigurement or getting something unsightly fixed. 15 years later they have a hospital catering to this. It was sketchy back then and I heard of botched jobs with not so great surgeons.<p>Here we are 15 years later where they fly in surgeons and pay the patients.<p>Anyone want to build a system to connect hospitals overseas with insurance companies&#x2F;patients?

How does one find any hope in a system like this?

Sometimes I&#x27;m thinking I&#x27;d love to work in USA. But reading this stories is very scary. When you have an emergency situation, you shouldn&#x27;t need to find out if the doctor&#x2F;hospital is on some network. One commenter on the article complains she was charged 65k.. waw.<p>I&#x27;m glad for the nhs.

&gt; Dr. Parisi, who spent less than 24 hours in Cancún, was paid $2,700, or three times what he would have received from Medicare, the largest single payer of hospital costs in the United States. Private insurers often base their reimbursement rates on what Medicare pays.<p>This is what happens when most of the actual health care cost is going to fat administrator paychecks.

&gt; Dr. Parisi, who spent less than 24 hours in Cancún, was paid $2,700, or three times what he would have received from Medicare<p>This illustrates perfectly the point I (and most everyone on Europe) tries to get to Americans and often they - for some weird reason - refuse to understand: healthcare can be cheaper and better to everyone (yes, this means that universal healthcare can and is cheaper on the taxpayers in most of the EU than for American taxpayers... with ours being universal), if you just understand that the middle man you created by wanting the state out of it, is getting most of the money.<p>It&#x27;s really so simple to understand...